Recently I've been noticing I/O errors on the plug. I believe the filesystem is corrupted in a way that allows reading, but not fixing on the Mac, but results in continual I/O errors on the plug. I've now purchased a second USB drive to allow me to mirror them and am faced with the decision as to what filesystem would be the best to use on the drive connected to the plug. I'm not booting off of the USB drive, so root-filesystem restrictions aren't an issue. I've given up on HFS+ as well due to the recent non-fixable corruption issues.

Does anyone have any advice as to what would be the most reliable filesystem to use in this situation? EXT2, EXT3, something else? Since I don't have a UPS, my biggest concern is corruption occurring due to sudden power failure. Are any filesystems more resistant to corruption in that situation?

Just because it might change in the future, or might stop working when they change the stuff shipped, it would be nice to add the start up conditions: When was the ShPlg bought? Kindly also list the versions of everything you see just prior to running this.

Looking at the README for that kernel (http://sheeva.with-linux.com/sheeva/README-2.6.30.3) it looks like I can pretty much just download the kernel and modules to the plug and nandwrite the image, all directly within the running plug rather than using JTAG, correct?

Are there detailed instructions for doing this kind of kernel upgrade anywhere? There are a few things in the README that I am unclear about:

Are the setenv/saveenv commands supposed to be run in the plug's running bash shell or in a boot-loader console? Should the be run before or after the nandwrite?

Quote

Due to changes in vm security a change must be made in /etc/sysctl.d/10-process-security.conf.vm.mmap_min_addr should be set to 32768 (This change is safe for any kernel version).If this is not done it is likely that you will not be able to login remotely.Although you should still be able to login as root on the main console.

If I'm reading this correcty, I should be able to make this config change before doing the nandwrite. Correct?

So, as I understand the README, the steps to upgrade from the default kernel on a new plug are as follows:

Due to changes in vm security a change must be made in /etc/sysctl.d/10-process-security.conf.vm.mmap_min_addr should be set to 32768 (This change is safe for any kernel version).If this is not done it is likely that you will not be able to login remotely.Although you should still be able to login as root on the main console.

Since this is the first install of a non-default kernal, uncomment the boot lines in the README:

Please let me know if this looks correct or if I have any of this wrong or out of order. Alternatively, please point me to step by step instructions that people have actually tried. I'd prefer not to brick my plug right off the bat if I can help it. As well, this way of updating the kernel seems a heck of a lot easier than setting up cross-compilers and the rest of it. If the documentation doesn't exist and I can get this working, I'd be happy to compile this into a more comprehensive wiki-page.

I have a USB HD that I'd like to be able to mount on both OS X and the Sheevaplug. I've read that HFS/HFS+ are supported in Ubuntu and have used apt-get to install a few HFS related utilities, but haven't been able to figure out how to get the drive to mount. I have turned off journaling on the drive, so that shouldn't be the issue.

Do I need to compile a new kernel or are there steps that I can take with the default (and dist-upgraded) OS to mount an HFS volume?